Author: Desert Porcupine
I still remember when I was a child, there were not many fresh seafood for sale in the Beijing market far from the seashore, and the frozen goods were mostly with fish, yellow fish, horse noodle pufferfish, shrimp, and dried goods In addition to kelp, seaweed, sea rice, shrimp skin, which can infer the living state from the appearance, there is also a cylindrical thing called dry scallops How to see how to guess its shape when it is alive, until I went to high school, I saw its living body for the first time.
Just such a lump of meat who can guess ah fall! Image: xiawu.com
In fact, there is more than one source of dried scallops, including many species of shellfish in the scallop family and the family Jiangjue, but according to the production area and production, many of the dried shellfish I saw as a child should come from the ctenophore scallops Chammys farreri. Ctenophore scallops belong to the bivalve class, as the name suggests, it has two shells, the shell shape is like a folding fan, and the shell surface has a characteristic radial pattern. There are some species of shells in the scallop family that have a variety of bright colors and are popular in the collecting world.
Shell of ctenophore scallops. Image: yhshells.com
The shape of the two shells of the ctenophore scallop is slightly different, generally speaking, the left shell is flat and the right shell is slightly bulging, when inhabiting the seabed, it is generally a flat left shell on the top, and the hinge of the two shells has an ear in front of and behind it, and the name of the ctenophore scallop is because its right shell has fine ctenophores and foot filament holes in the front ear. If you look closely at the live scallops, you can also find that there are dark dots on the mantle membrane at the edge of the shell, these are its eyes, a total of more than a hundred, each eye has a retina and lens, but the structure is simple, can only feel the change of light and shade and can not distinguish the shape, which helps the ctenophore scallop to escape from danger when predators such as starfish invade.
Look me in the eye... Image: Wiki commons
What, you ask how to escape? After prying open the shell, you can see the structural basis of the ctenophore scallops that can escape at a rapid speed. The most conspicuous of its soft tissue structures is the milky white cylindrical closed shell muscle in the center, which, when dried, is the dried shell I saw as a child, and when the closed shell muscle contracts, the two shells are tightly closed. In fact, bivalves have two anterior and posterior closed shell muscles, but the anterior closed shell muscle of scallops disappears, leaving only a particularly developed posterior closed shell muscle.
The internal structure of the scallop Image: cfs.gov.hk
Two thousand years ago, in addition to the closed shell muscle, there was Aphrodite. Image: Wiki commons
When movement is required, the closed shell muscle can quickly and repeatedly contract and relax to absorb water into the shell, while the mantle membrane at the edge of the shell is closed, so that the water can only squirt out from the hinge of the two shells, so that the scallops can swim one by one like Pac-Man, at a speed of about 50 centimeters per second. Because of this structure, scallops are the only group of shellfish that have migratory behavior.
Schematic of scallop swimming. Image: Wiki commons
Attack scallops. See watermark for image source
Developed closed shell muscle is the best part of the body of ctenophore scallops, a large number of amino acids and nucleotides in the cells to bring it plenty of fresh sweetness, excess spices and excessive cooking will damage its delicious taste, simply frying, steaming or directly do sashimi raw eating is the best, sun-dried into dried scallops will make the umami substance concentrate, and then soak the soup like natural MSG.
However, when eating, do not only eat the closed shell muscle and throw away the others, the structure around the closed shell muscle can also be eaten, such as the coat film (skirt) wrapped in soft tissue, the taste and texture are good. Orange (female) or white (male) reproductive glands and black digestive glands are more likely to be enriched with algal toxins and heavy metal contaminants, although it can be eaten, but it is best to assess the risk of eating with caution.
Scallops fried in butter. Image: ganlanhuabao.com
Steamed scallops with garlic vermicelli. Image: gigacircle.com
In addition to ctenophore scallops, there are many edible species in the scallop family, such as the long rib sun and moon shell Anuium pleuronectes distributed along the coast of China, the luxurious ctenophore scallops Chelamys nobilis, as well as the imported Ezo scallop Patinopecten yessoensis, bay scallop Argopecten irradians and purple scallops and so on.
These scallops are still relatively easy to distinguish in appearance, the long rib sun and moon shell is called the Asian sun and moon clam in Taiwan, and in Hong Kong is called the sun and moon fish, the word sun and moon originates from the different colors of its left and right shells, the left shell is brownish red and the right shell is white.
Long rib sun and moon shells. Image: aquarium.co.jp
The shells of the magnificent ctenophores are available in orange, purple, brown and other colors. Bay scallops are native to the Atlantic Ocean, smaller than ctenophore scallops, and the diameter of the shell is generally five or six centimeters. Native to the South Pacific, purple scallops are the main farmed shellfish in the Americas, with purple shells and large large constrictor muscles.
Luxurious ctenophore scallops. Image: kawasaki.jp
Originating in the waters near Japan, the Ezo scallop is the largest of the common scallops, the shell diameter can be 20 cm, called "sail shell" in Japanese, which can be seen to be large, and a small number of Ezo scallops because of genetic mutations make the carotenoids accumulated in closed shell muscle cells orange-red.
Ezo scallop sashimi Photo: aomori.lg.jp
The problem is that many of these scallops can be hybridized with each other, and many of the scallops seen in the market are hybrids, which is more troublesome to identify - fortunately, as long as the scallops are delicious!
=== Staring at your dividing line ====
Whether we pay attention to it or not, the dinner table is one of the most frequent links we communicate with the biosphere. The 2016 Table Species Calendar will give you a full picture of every familiar or unfamiliar ingredient – one species a day, and delicious souls will eventually meet.
------ Table of Contents Posts ------
The species calendar can also be carried around, follow our WeChat public account (guokrpac), every day at 12 midnight, the species introduction of the day will arrive on time!
This article is from the fruit shell network, refuse to reprint. Please contact the [email protected] if necessary.